During her year as VP Education and Democracy, Jo Lisney has achieved lots of positive changes for students. Here we take a look at what she’s worked on this year and her most successful projects!

• Lecture recordings implemented across all departments. For the last 10 years, SUSU’s VPs for Education have been lobbying the University to invest in ensuring lectures are recorded for students. As time has gone on, more lecturers have taken this practice up, but it was not consistent. This year, Jo was able to research and put together a proposal for the University to consider, and to

The University Executive Board has approved an extension to the Maternity and Shared Parental Leave policy for doctoral researchers.

Following a meeting on 26th November 2018, the University Executive Board (UEB) approved an agreed Policy for Maternity Pay and Shared Parental Leave for doctoral researchers at the University of Southampton.

The University Policy covers maternity, paternity or shared parental leave. Students covered by the policy are entitled to 52 weeks of leave.

Richard Curtis, FELS PGR Officer says “It is fantastic that the University of Southampton are finally recognising the real-world pressures on postgraduate students. Knowing that the ability to … Read the rest

As well as our Halls Elections, we are also running by-elections for a select number of roles at the Union. If you want to make a difference on your course, at your faculty, or to represent a wider community of students, put your name forward!

Nominations are open from Monday 05 November at 09:00 – Thursday 22 November at 13:00.

The roles available in this round of elections are below –

Winchester School of Art roles

• WSA International Officer
• WSA Social Events Officer
• Arts and Humanities Faculty Officer
• Arts and Humanities Postgraduate Research Representative

Postgraduate roles 

• Medicine Postgraduate Research Representative

Check out the first guest blog from our Community Engagement Officer, Ben Yarnall, who is a member of the Postgraduate Research Committee…

Great news everyone! This weekend marks the first attempt, in my stay at the University of Southampton, of an open postgraduate event.

The presence of a postgraduate society for biological scientists was a great help to me in the first year of my PhD. I did not study here for my undergraduate degree and had no existing friends in the area. Having people to play socialise with from the word go at least distracted me from the daunting … Read the rest

The position for the Training and Development Officer on the PGR (Postgraduate Research) Committee up for by-election as it wasn’t filled in the first election.

The Training and Development Officer is responsible for communicating with PGRs on the strengths and weaknesses of current training and development opportunities and communicating their ideas and feedback to the Union and the University (sitting on the Doctoral College Training and Development Sub-Committee.)

This role is a great opportunity to gain new skills and help develop opportunities for PGR students.

You can read more about the committee here.

Nominations are open NOW until tomorrow … Read the rest

Union Council meets throughout the year to decide on SUSU policy and hold the work of the Sabbatical team to account.

Any student at the University of Southampton can attend meetings, with decisions voted on by the elected members and Union Councillors.

The next meeting is on Monday 15th April at 5pm in the University Senate Room, and is a great opportunity for you to get involved in making decisions at SUSU as we’re electing some currently unfilled positions!

There are two Student Leader positions, which include:

• Outreach (Site) Officer
• Faculty of Business and Law Officer

Plus we’re also … Read the rest